


Like Clockwork

by DolliRogers



Series: Counterclockwise [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Character Death, Confessions, Cruelty, F/M, Flashbacks, Genetic Engineering, Hurt/Comfort, Romantic Friendship, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:38:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DolliRogers/pseuds/DolliRogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship as neighbors has not changed much in two years. It is tenuous at best and hostile [from his side, always] at worst. SciFi Future-Modern AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5 Years Time

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written SanSan before. I think this will be a long one, however. Deem it as you will.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do not expect for this to happen again."

Five thirty in the morning. Awake, but not alert. Shower. Eat while dressing. Eyeliner.  Brush teeth. Rinse twice. Coat. Shoes. Bag. Out the door. Back in the door. Keys. Out the door. Think. Lock. Pass sign declaring elevator out of order. Down four flights of stairs in kitten heels. Six blocks south to the underground. Arrive four minutes early. A fifteen minute ride. Four blocks west to the office. A quick stop at an Indian stand outside for a fresh-baked roti slathered in ghee. Regret. Up six floors in a functioning elevator. Cubicle. Revive outdated computer. Check time. 6:55AM = five minutes early. Dismay.

For two years, the routine had been clockwork. A moment earlier or later more often than not signified that the day was already ruined. It had been the ghee, she decided. Clarified butter did awful things to her thighs, as well as her complexion, and had she skipped the roti, she would not have gone hungry. The cafeteria always had bananas or apples or something more likely better for her than ghee. From this day forth, the routine was changed. No more rotis for Sansa Stark.

Work. Lunch. Chicken and greens. Gossip. Work. Present work to supervisor. Work some more. Clock out. Coat. Bag. Down six floors in the lift. Asshat before her breaks wind. Nine persons crammed in the damn thing suffer. Cannot abide the smell and escapes on the third floor to take the stairs instead. Four blocks east to the underground. Arrive four minutes late. A fifteen minute wait. A fifteen minute ride. A harassed looking mother less than halfheartedly attempts to quiet her three wailing children. She does not succeed. Six blocks north to the flat. Realize phone is back in the office. Curse [quietly]. Make to return to the office. Strap on left foot catches on a fence and snaps. Curse again [also quietly]. Elderly gentleman passing by hears. Tells her how disappointing it is for a pretty thing like her to possess such a foul mouth. Frustration. Forget the phone. Forget the blasted shoe. Back toward the flat. Into the lobby. Check mail. Missed a package by ten minutes. Tears gather behind her eyes. They threaten to flood onto her cheeks. She sniffs.

Bugger the shoe and the phone and the elderly and the train and the elevator and most of all bugger that terrible awful man who did not have it in him to do his business in a place that hadn't been confined and filled to the gills with unsuspecting office workers who had public transportation to catch.

So engrossed in her misery is she that a large shadow falling across her goes completely unnoticed.

“Do you mind?”

She tenses first, scrunching her eyes closed for a moment, before taking a deep breath and turns. It is 504. The man who lives in the flat next door to hers. His incredibly formidable frame takes up her entire vision, so much larger than she is he. His long unkempt dark hair is in his grey eyes as he peers down at her, covering the scar that mars one side of his face and neck. The rumpled V-neck shirt revealing a tiny piece of a tattoo that adorns a portion of his chest and well-worn flannel pants mark that he has only recently awakened. It also marks how well formed he is; the soft cotton of the V-neck stretches taut over his chest and upper arms, tapering down a slim waist. He reaches up a hand to rub the back of his neck, and her mouth goes dry as the muscles of his pectoral and bicep bunch and bulge. Whenever Sansa catches sight of the male before her, she always thinks privately to herself that beside the word ‘male’ in the dictionary should be a picture of this man: the very essence of masculinity in its rawest form.

All this she takes account for and notes in her head within a moment, as she has learned that 504 does not appreciate to be gawked at. She had learned the lesson almost immediately when she had first moved in two years ago. The last thing she had expected the day after the last truck with her things from Cambridge had pulled away was for this tank of a man to knock on her door stating he worked night shifts and therefore required the day to sleep and the sound of her moving furniture was not letting him have that. He had filled the entire frame with his body, and she had stood there and blinked at him stupidly. When she thinks about that embarrassing first impression, she likes to pretend that she had had at least the courtesy to keep her mouth closed. In reality, it had been open.

She had also learned that the walls between their flats were appallingly thin. He had passed her on the stairs once and commented that if “the little bird must continue to sing” while she showered, then he must request that she keep the “cheeping” to a dull roar so that when he fell asleep he could remain as such until he was good and ready to regain consciousness. Since then, when he greets her [if he greets her] it is always as ‘little bird’. She did not know his name then [and still does not know it now], so he has become 504 in her mind.

Their relationship as neighbors has not changed much in two years. It is tenuous at best and hostile [from his side, always] at worst.

She notices that his face has taken on a strangely concerned look.

“Oh. I’m sorry. Excuse me.” She scrubs at her eyes and heads for the stairs to make her escape before the humiliation of being caught weeping can consume her.

He catches her arm.

“Don’t you move,” he grunts. She is helpless to do anything but obey. She is pinned to the spot under the gaze of his eyes. He checks his mail. Three envelopes. A periodical. A wad of junk mail. He turns back to her and bids her with his eyes to start back up the stairs. She does. This is the most interaction with him that she has ever experienced.

They reach the fifth floor. The hand on her back pushes her gently passed 506 to the door labeled 504. He opens the door from behind her and herds her inside. He walks into the kitchen. She remains rooted to the spot and listens to the door clicks shut. She becomes conscious of how ridiculous her broken shoe must look. She becomes conscious that they have never simultaneously entered or left the building before. She becomes conscious of how her breathing has accelerated. She wonders if he can hear her thudding heart.

This man screams _dangerous_ and she is alone with him. She feels much smaller in this strange apartment with this strange man.

She hears the whir of a microwave come from the kitchen as he reemerges. He leans against the archway and folds his arms across his chest. She momentarily forgets to breathe before coughing awkwardly and finding the floor suddenly very fascinating.

“Sit.” She immediately finds a spot on his sofa. She glances up at him through her eyelashes. He is studying her silently. She folds her hands in her lap and stares at them instead. He catches this exchange and snorts before attending to his microwave. She tries not to pay attention to whatever it is he’s doing and takes to wondering what he could possible want with her. He seats himself in an armchair and sets a steaming mug of tea on the coffee table between them. She looks up at him [surprised]. She takes the warm cup into her autumn-chilled hands.

“Thank you.” He snorts again.

“What for.”

“It’s courteous.” She frowns when he looks to laugh outright.

“Courtesy.” He chuckles. “A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite.” The mug begins to burn her hands as she finds herself unable to respond. She takes a sip. He watches. She fidgets where she sits.

“I—I did not think you a man who drank tea…to be honest…” she near mumbles.

“I had a girl living here for a short while.” His answer is blunt. A prick of envy strikes Sansa. A relative [perhaps]. Probably a paramour. She does not remember ever seeing a girl going in and out of his flat. Maybe the girl had worked nights like him. “She drank the watered down shit, not me.”

“Where is she now?” He lifts an eyebrow at her. She flushes and looks away. “If you don’t mind my asking, I mean.”

“I don’t mind.” She sips again and he leans forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. “She made for the continent. I don’t know where. I was in the hospital from a work injury and by the time I came back she was long gone.”

“Did…did you love her?” This time he does laugh. His smile is pleasant and gruesome and mirthless at once.

“No, girl, I would not have touched her with a two meter pole. Nor would she have let me.” A very small sense of relief washes over her. As much of a horror one side of this man’s face was, Sansa cannot deny the attraction she feels towards him. The possibility of him lying with a woman [when she herself lay so close] stung. The feeling is unreasonable; he is older and probably more experienced than she when it comes to carnal lust. Or at least, he looks like he should be. She subtly appraises his body again over the rim of her cup. “My turn to interrogate,” he says.

“Is that why you've brought me here?” she asks. He ignores the question.

“What could possibly be so bad that I find you weeping over mail?” A flush spreads over her body. She can feel her ears burning.

“It wasn't the mail,” she says bitterly.

“Then what was it?”

“Just…a culmination of awful things really.”

“So awful as to require tears?”

“No. Probably not.” He simply observes her. It comes out in a gush.

She tells him about her father [how she made a routine to live by that mimicked his]. She tells him about her brothers [the crippled one and the dead one]. She tells him about her mother. She tells him about the Baratheons. She tells him about her time in Cambridge [the shame she endured by the man the undergrad girls nicknamed ‘Littlefinger’] which ended with her early graduation and fleeing to Glasgow.

She skips over the brother sitting on the brink of death. She skips over her missing siblings as well. She does not want to think about what might be.

She does not want to be the only Stark left.

He listens with a blank face. She does not know if he cared to listen to it all [if at all]. They sit in silence as the minutes stretch passed the end of her story.

She will not cry in front of him again. She must not. She cannot.

He sets a box of tissues before her when she starts. He does not move again. He does not leave her alone. She wishes he would hold her. He does not say anything. Her tea goes cold. She quiets [eyeliner a ruin]. The tap in the kitchen drips. She stands.

“I should go.”

“Little bird.” Her body comes to a halt in front of the door. How easily he manipulates her, she finds.

 “You have reason for tears,” he says [his voice is low], “So if you must, shed them. It will do you no good to keep them to yourself.” She processes his words in her mind. He hands her bag to her. “It will also do me no good if you start the habit of crying in your showers rather than singing.” She laughs in disbelief at his audacity and shakes her head weakly. He pinches her chin and forces her to look at him. “I am not easy to look at. But you aren’t easy to look at in this state either.” He opens the door and guides her out before she can say anything.

“I am not an emotional man, Sansa Stark.” She whirls to face him again. Not once has she told him her name. Not once has she mentioned any names the entire time she has been here. He towers over her.

“How—”

“Do not expect for this to happen again.”

Her eyes do not look away when he reaches out and thumbs a tear from her cheek.

Then he shuts the door in her face.


	2. Teenage Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then he thinks of how he himself would taint her had he the chance.

He had been twenty-six when he first laid eyes on Sansa Stark. She had been eleven years old and already in an awkward place between childhood and puberty. She had been pale, pretty, and perfectly ladylike. All the more reason for the Baratheons to take an interest in her for their eldest son. The mother called him her little prince. He had always thought 'little prick' fit the boy much better. They had been at a Christmas party in the Stark’s home, and he had been hired muscle at the time. He watched the two families mingle and mill about each other [too courteous to admit they each hated the other]. He watched the children eye one another with little trust. He had noticed Sansa gaze breathlessly at that blond ponce. He had already worked for the Baratheons often enough to know Joffrey was an insufferable git [not that the little redheaded girl would ever figure that out any time soon]. Back then, he had thought her as stupid as the Baratheons had. Then her bratty little sister had stared him in the face and asked what he had done to deserve an appearance like his [before her mother had managed to clap a hand over her mouth and apologize for her].

The next time he saw her again was during the following summer when she relocated to London with her father and sister. They briefly resided with the Baratheon family before moving into their own home. The beast that family had called a dog clamped its jaws onto Joffrey’s skinny forearm before disappearing without a trace. Sansa’s smaller and much gentler hound was put down in its stead. He was sent to collect her for a dinner between the Starks and the Baratheons and was about to knock on the door when her pitiful sobs had filtered through to his ears. He left her alone in a rare fit of pity [later reporting that she was not in her room for him to collect]. Eddard Stark knew what he had done by the look on his face [he had sneered at the man in spite of himself].

The Baratheon company’s attempt to pretend they were not bankrupt blew up in their faces not long after that and a mob of very angry laid-off employees had come for Robert’s head. Sandor Clegane finally decided this family was just one massive crackpot [just a fucking circus] and said fuck it before simply turning his back on the madness.

He had gotten himself shamelessly plastered that same night. He briefly regretted not making at least an endeavor to rescue the sweet Stark girl from the lunacy. He stumbled into his flat and passed out on his bed. He dreamed that he had been in her room [waiting for her] and asked her to run with him. Even in his dream she refused him [staring wide-eyed at his twice cursed face]. He woke well into the afternoon of the next day incredibly hung over with his mouth tasting like something died in it and did not think of the Starks for almost nine years.

He had known her the first time she opened her door to him. He had been roused from his sleep at ten in the morning to the sound of heavy furniture being dragged slowly across linoleum. He laid there waiting for the noise to stop. When it became apparent that he had a new neighbor that could not lift furniture he got up and padded over to 506. He definitely had not anticipated a young woman like her to answer the door [her hair tied in a bun and the pale column of her neck exposed]. Her lips parted as she panted for breath [full and flushed]. A silence the length of a few moments went by as her eyes went the size of saucers in surprise. She was forced to crane her neck to look at him. He broke the reverie when she unconsciously swallowed and licked her lips [Christ].

He had seen by her face that she did not know him. Being the brute he was, he had rudely suggested she try moving the wretched futon at an hour when he wasn’t sleeping. She had nodded quickly. Then he had stormed back to bed. Sansa Stark. Sansa fucking Stark who was a woman now [yet still just a girl]. He had not heard her move anything after that.

They had come to an odd mutual agreement for the following two years. He saw her every now and then coming down the stairs heading to work while he started up them after particularly long nights of punching more or less deserving people in the face. She would smile shyly at him. He would nod at/grunt at/completely ignore her. Two years had gone and he had successfully thought little and less of her. For the most part.

There had been a time when he was awakened yet again by a sound coming from 506. The girl was crooning away in her shower [some love song from the sound of it; for fuck’s sake—]. He had lain there listening until the hiss of the shower ceased and the sound of a blow dryer passed through the wall of her bathroom and his. The next morning had been the end of another lengthy shift and he caught her on the stairs again. She was wearing a crisp white button down with the first three buttons left undone and a smart pencil skirt that ended at the knee. This time his weary mind immediately conjured what she might look like underneath her clothes. He averted his gaze when she smiled at him and brushed by her without a word. The next morning he was awake again [listening to her] and could not help but picture the hot water sliding over her shoulders and down down down. Her sodden hair would darken to the color of blood. Her skin would be unblemished and light as alabaster. Her eyelashes would clump together over her blue eyes [they were hooded with desire for him in this fantasy]. Sandor felt the familiar stirrings of arousal. He almost felt sick thinking the things he was thinking of the woman just on the other side of the wall [she was so young and so appealing and he…and he…]. He heard the sound of her voice again and the splash of water as she wrung out her hair. He threw morals to the wind. He reached under the covers and enveloped himself in his fist. The soft tones of her voice urged his strokes to become more rapid and purposeful, squeezing his fist around his shaft, envisioning the way she might be hot and tight as he took her by her hips and buried himself inside her—

This continued for nigh on a week. Then he had begun to dream of her naked [her soft skin sliding across his flesh]. The next morning he had asked the little bird to pipe down a bit. She apologized and agreed [looking rather abashed].

Then there had been that one boy that had come calling on her for weeks on end [Harrold or Harry or Wanker or whatever he’d been called]. It became apparent to Sandor that the girl was not fond of his affections and he had very nearly squashed the chump’s face in as he left for work one night. Bloke never showed his face around there again.

And then he had come down for the post and saw her standing there with her mailbox open. He stood behind her, waiting for her to move. When she faced him there were tears in her blue eyes [right on the edge of falling] and he had promptly lost himself.

He does not think of what his actions may have engendered until he closes the door on her bewildered face.

He stands there and replays her words in his head. The house of Stark has been decimated. She had been thrown into the lion’s den alone. She had endured and survived as she knew she must. He thinks of what she told him of the man she called Littlefinger. He wants to rip the bastard’s head from his shoulders [feel the flesh and veins tear away and the vertebrae separate and snap] and then burn him until he is nothing but ash. Sansa is for all intents and purposes a pure and innocent woman [naïve and trusting of all the wrong people]. He does not know if he is also one of the wrong people.

He thinks of how the execrable Littlefinger had touched her. How he knew what she looked like naked. How he had run his hands over her smooth skin. How he had tainted her.

Then he thinks of how he himself would taint her had he the chance.

He marches into the bathroom. Turns on the shower. Stands in there with the hot water on his back. Finally growls and takes himself in hand to the thought of her for the first time in near a year. This time he thinks of her mouth on him. He visualizes those lips stretched around his cock and the way her eyes would not close but stay on his face as she pleasured him. He imagines what it would feel like as she swallowed him down and how she would tongue his slit [eager for a taste of his seed]. In his mind she would fondle his balls before briefly suckling on them. The make-believe turns vicious as he thinks of running one hand into her hair and wrapping the other around her neck to force her into taking all of him. He orgasms at the idea of her choking on the tip of him as he emptied himself into the back of her throat. He would make her drink him.

He wants to hurt someone as soon as he comes down from his release. He has done deplorable things in his life for deplorable people. The burns he bears have scarred his mind as well as his face. He has fifteen years on the girl. He can never possess her the way he wishes.

He gets out of the shower and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He thinks of Sansa now when his gaze traces the leathery twisted mass of scar tissue. He can change his face about as much as he can change his past [not that he hasn’t wished it]. He gives an annoyed grunt and continues into the bedroom. He is usually good about looking in the mirror as little as humanly possible. The scars don’t so much bother him now even in public. With so many people in one day staring with blatant pity/disdain/apprehension, practice makes it becomes easy to ignore it all. He got used to it.

Evening has fallen by the time he has eaten and dressed and gathered his wallet and keys. His phone flashes at him from the kitchen counter. He steps outside and locks the door. He stops in front of 506 and listens. Sounds like something sizzling in a skillet. She’ll be alright. He moves onto the stairs and checks his phone. A text message from a foreign number flashes at him.

_It’s me. I’m going to be in Edinburgh Monday. I’ll need you._

He knows exactly who it is and texts back: _For what. If you think I’ll let you stay in my flat again you’re daft._

_That’s too bad. Goes without saying you won’t be needed at work that night. Come get me. I’ll email you the time and place._

‘Once a pain in the arse always a pain in the arse,’ he thinks sourly to himself. He unlocks his car and sets the address in the text into his GPS for Monday. Edinburgh is not too far a drive but his mood blackens anyway. The irritating chit had better have a very good explanation.

It’s nearly three in the morning by the time he returns home. He is too tired to deal with anything save a couple shots of whiskey and a bit of toothpaste to clean his mouth out before stripping down and heading to bed. He briefly wonders what his pretty neighbor will do now that he’s spoken more than a few words to her. He wonders if he frightens her.

She comes knocking as he leaves the shower an hour before he departs for work two days later. She stands out in the hall gaping at him [again] as he scrubs the water from his hair.

“Gather your wits, girl. What do you want?” he barks unkindly. She flinches and he almost thinks to just shut the door again before she squares her shoulders and schools her face into a determined expression.

“Have we met before?” she inquires. He allows the towel over his head to slip down around his neck. He crosses his arms and leans against the door jamb.

“Would you have remembered me if we had?” he shoots back.

“I’d like to think I would have, yes,” she replies primly.

“I used to provide private security for Robert Baratheon and his family.” He does not miss the little gasp she makes and the way she pales considerably.

“You—you saw me with them?” she asks.

“Aye. You and that Joffrey boy seemed quite attached.” The words are unkind [he knows] and a little misery slides into her voice.

“You were the one who came to my door the night after Joffrey's mother Cersei had Lady euthanized,” she realizes. He frowns in confusion. “I heard you come up the stairs and I was afraid you were sent to bring me to that awful woman,” she carries on, “I looked outside when nothing happened. I saw the side of your face when you rounded the corner after you left.” She hesitates [as if wondering if it would be appropriate to continue]. “I didn’t see your scar,” she confesses.

He is suddenly very glad that they hadn’t properly met when she would have had to fear him.

“Haven’t changed much since then, have you?” he says, “You still chirp pretty things. You still carry fear in you.”

“I don’t think you know me well enough to gauge whether I’ve changed or not.” He grins down at her ferociously [amused]. She examines the floor with feigned interest.

“If you’re quite finished—”

“I was wondering if you would be open to stepping out with me for dinner,” she says [her words are clear and measured out like she had been rehearsing]. His eyebrows shoot up. This girl is as daft as—he chuckles at her [shaking the thoughts from his head].

“You’re asking me to step out with you.” She pauses and wets her lower lip [like she knows what it does to him when that pink little tongue makes an appearance].

“Did I stutter?” He smirks.

“Have I ruffled the little bird’s feathers?” he finds himself teasing. A flush appears on her skin [mostly her ears]. “Why on earth do you think a man like me should be stepping out with a sweet young thing like you?” Her eyes flick up to his face and then down at her feet [stopping at his folded arms before dropping].

“I’m afraid I don’t understand…” she murmurs [she shifts from one foot to the other]. He wraps a hand around her little arm and pulls her toward him before he can stop himself [the slow scorch of irritation builds in his gut].

“Look at me.” She stiffens and does as he commands. Her clear eyes peek up at him from under a thick frame of lashes [the gesture is alluring and extraordinarily innocent at once] and she observes him unblinkingly. He holds her gaze.

“I’m looking,” she says to him softly. He drops her arm like her flesh burns him. She bites her lip and he nearly groans. He can see her breath coming fast as close as she is.

“Not tonight,” he tells her [disappointment and embarrassment become apparent in her expression]. “I have a job to do.”

“But it’s Sunday…”

“Aye.” He feels guilty when she nods and steps back. He rolls his eyes. “If it pleases you, I’ll be free tomorrow until eight.”

“In the evening?”

“Aye.” Something in him constricts as he watches the smile bloom on her face [and he’s a blooming sod for feeling things like this].

“Perfect,” she says, “I’ll come around four, if that’s alright?” He nods.

“Until tomorrow then,” he says.

“Until tomorrow,” she replies softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely did not expect so much feedback - let alone all those kudos and reviews! - for something that was born of a drabble. Thank you!


	3. Only You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There are more tragic things in this world than your face, you know. There are more terrible things to live with for the rest of your life than your scars."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who commented on this chapter, I'm sorry but they were deleted. You are most definitely welcome to recomment, of course. Won't stop you there. Nope. Will do no such thing.

The morning routine occurs in a new week’s rotation. It is Monday. The shrubbery around the steps leading up to the flat [once lush green in the summer] are shriveled and brown and hidden under the frost of early morning. The sun has not risen yet. She can see her breath before her and tucks the lower half of her face into the muffler her coworker Randa had gifted her as congratulations for her promotion last year. Her hands are jammed deep into her coat pockets and she briskly begins the familiar pilgrimage to the underground.

She encounters no rotis.

The day is a blur outside Sansa’s cubicle. Inside her stomach is a tense jumble of excitement and apprehension. She had not meant for the invitation she’d spent two days preparing to actually leave her mouth—and she most certainly had not expected 504 to accept. He is definitely older than she [much rougher than any man than she had ever associated herself with] and just seems like he has better things to do than to cater to his rash young neighbor’s impulses. She feels incredibly foolish simply having asked him.

The ladies down at the watering hole [or so she calls that fountain they tend to gather round to gossip juicy tidbits] are tittering about one woman’s woes of renting from a cheap old flat. Sansa pays the maximum of what she can afford for rent [which seems like a bloody ransom every month] but is suddenly grateful. Anything less and she may have ended up sharing a public bath with the rest of the tenants. The subsequent idea of sharing a bath with 504 both horrifies and delights her for the same reasons. She attempts to mentally swipe the thought from her mind and focus on the task at hand [spreadsheets]. She fails miserably. She thinks of running into 504 while he brushes his teeth. While he shaves. While he steps out of the shower clad in a stunningly low slung towel. Heat roils just below her belly. It spreads to that place between her legs. She shifts awkwardly in her chair [her cheeks flame softly in embarrassment] and rubs her thighs together as inconspicuously as one can do in an office full of other females.

Spreadsheets. Right.

Those spreadsheets are dull enough to get her mind away from imagining 504’s delectable body [or what she assumes must be under his clothing judging merely by the size of his arms alone] and how her eyes would follow the prominent V-shape of his hips down to an unmistakable bulge—she clears her throat. Stands and straightens her skirt. Tramps into the loo [which is blessedly empty]. Shuts herself in a stall and shimmies down her hose before hiking up the edge of her skirt. She knows what to do in a case such as this [and quickly]. Her fingers reach down there [tentatively as always] and her ears match colors with her cheeks when she finds herself already sopping. _Sopping_. ‘God, _’_ she thinks to herself [ashamed and thrilled at once]. She doesn’t bother pushing her knickers down but simply rubs at the little bud right above her entrance through a layer of thin cotton. Her fingers are deft and her strokes are quick and purposeful. Her thoughts are all a mess.

She thinks of what the expression on his face would look like if she nudged the damp towel from around his hips [letting it fall to the floor]. Of how lean and strong his legs would be. Of how his genitalia would begin to stir under her hungry gaze. She thinks of how she would take it into her hands. He would be large and thick and long [she can imagine him no other way] and fill her utterly as she fantasizes him bending her over the sink and taking her from behind…and making her watch him in the mirror. She decides he would be ruthless in his love-making—no. He would not make love. He would fuck her. She peaks at the thought of the pace he would keep [she can only visualize it as punishing]. A very fine layer of sweat borders her hairline and traces the dip of her collarbone. Her legs tremble as she withdraws her fingers. She struggles to quiet her breathing. Sansa does not believe she has ever experienced such a climax before. She has also never found appealing the idea of rough sex [nearly to the point of pain]. She might like it if it was with him.

She returns to her cubicle stiffly [as if anyone can instantly recognize her post-orgasmic flush] and makes very little headway on those spreadsheets before another female’s loudly obnoxious voice joins the conversation at the watering hole.

“You know Mya Stone over in the communications office?”

“The one who’s climbed a million mountains and never shuts up about bedding that Redfort boy? Yeah.”

“Well, I guess that Redfort boy’s got a sister whose husband’s cousin was killed in the post bombin’ Friday.”

“No!”

“Yes! Blasted to bits, can you imagine? Poor sod.” Sansa scoots backwards out of her cubicle.

“Post bombing?” she inquires.

“Oh, aye. The post office in Hyndland had a tickin’ bomb in one of their packages, an’ it went off. Not a biggun, mind you, but it killed a couple o’ employees an’ incinerated a portion o’ Saturday’s post, I’d wager.” The women continue their chatter as Sansa rolls back into her cubicle [stunned].

It is not even a ten minute walk from her flat in Partick to Hyndland. The thought that someone had lost their life in a bombing incident within such proximity of her was downright spooky. What had she been doing on Friday?

Oh, spilling her life story to her hapless neighbor. That sounds about right. Why, the very same neighbor with whom she has a date. She begins to strike the side of her head repeatedly with a listless fist.

‘Oh, yes. Get ahead of yourself, Sansa, and call it a date,’ she berates herself, ‘Next you’ll be wishing he’d plow your arse proper after finding him in a public bath.’

Her forehead connects solidly with her desk. Time moves at an increasingly slow rate after that.

And so it is three hours later that she finds herself standing in front of the door beside hers with one hand raised and ready to knock but much too timid to really do it. He opens the door before she musters the courage and looks down at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Was wondering how long you were planning to stand there,” he snorts as he locks the door behind him. She flushes and fiddles with her purse. He has a washed-out grey V-neck under a black zip-up and a coat on top of that that has seen better days and worn jeans over boots. Sansa has never seen him out of his work clothes or what she had assumed were his pajamas last Friday night. She decides he dresses like she had expected.

Then she realizes they are standing awkwardly in the corridor and she is eyeing him like a cat in heat. She clears her throat with more gusto than necessary.

“Wh-where would you like to go?” Where had that stutter come from? She wants to step on her own toes hard [as if that would fix the trouble her brain seemed to be experiencing].

“You asked me out with you and didn’t even think of an itinerary?” Her flush deepens.

“Well…there’s a lovely shop just down the street from here, it’s called the Tea Garden. We could go there,” she offers up [a little too fast]. He blinks. “I just wanted to buy you a drink…or something…for listening to me…”

“You can buy me a drink, little bird, but I can guarantee your Tea Garden doesn’t have anything near strong enough for my liking.”

“I thought you had a previous engagement later tonight?”

“Aye, I’ve got a bit of driving to do yet.”

“But…but under the influence of alc—”

“For Christ’s sake, girl, I’ll be alright.” Chastened, she nods and leaves it at that.

‘Let him crash; maybe it will teach him something.’ He is observing her quietly before a deliberate grin stretches across his face.

“I know a place,” is all he says.

It is about a fifteen minute drive in his car [in which she sits so primly he asks if she’s got a steel rod for a spine] when they reach their destination. They leave the car in a multi-story car park and walk a few blocks north. Sansa figures they have passed five or six pubs and cafes before coming to a halt.

He must be joking. He must be. She gapes up at him and it is all he needs to know exactly what she is thinking.

“What, don’t like it? Actually accommodates the both of us quite nicely. Whiskey for me, all the girly cocktails your tiny little body can handle…”

“What _is_ this place?” He smirks at her.

“Didn’t they teach you to read in Cambridge?” he says before heading inside. Sansa gapes at his back and swallows thickly before raising her eyes to reread the sign above the pub.

 _NiceNSleazy_ it says. No, Sansa has undeniably never encountered anyone like 504 before.

She enters with extreme caution.

After drinks and food have been ordered, she is forced to recognize this place is really not that bad. It is a historic pub from the early twenty-first century, tactfully kept in its original state [even boasting paper towel dispensers of antiquity in the lou] but updated for modern use.

They do not speak until the food has arrived and he has a tumbler of hard liquor in front of him. She daintily picks at her basket of triple baked chips and watches him devour a hamburger aptly named ‘Behemoth’.

“Did you taste any of that on the way down?” she asks him when the burger has vanished. He silently sips his whiskey in response and regards her rather seriously over his glass.

“What?” she says self-consciously [jerkily pushing a lock of hair behind her ear before fondling the pearl stud in her lobe]. He is silent for a few moments more before setting the glass down and picking a chip from her basket.

“Nothing.” The chip crunches between his teeth. Sansa looks down at her hands folded in her lap before wetting her lips and inhaling deeply.

“Your name,” she says. He looks up at her from the chips in his fingers. “We’ve been neighbors for two years and I’ve never known your name.” She observes him as if waiting for a response [one that doesn’t come] before continuing. “You’ve apparently known my name all along.” He chews and swallows before wiping his fingers on a napkin and leaning forward on his elbows. He is enormous and she stamps down the need to move back in her seat.

“What are you trying to do?” he asks. His scars are a twisted dark tangle in the dim light of the pub but his eyes pierce through the gloom to hers. His eyes are stone-grey and just as hard. She stares back [eyes wide and caught off-guard] as she begins to think the same.

‘What _am_ I trying to do?’ She lowers her gaze to avoid his scrutiny and recalls the damning thought process that led her to such insanity as this.

**Three Days Ago [Friday, December 4, 2172]**

“I am not an emotional man, Sansa Stark.” She whirls to face him again. Not once has she told him her name. Not once has she mentioned any names the entire time she has been here. He towers over her.

“How—”

“Do not expect for this to happen again.”

Her eyes do not look away when he reaches out and thumbs a tear from her cheek.

Then he shuts the door in her face.

She stands there for what seems like a long time [gawking stupidly at the door]. She can hear him moving around inside and it shakes her out of her reverie. She flees to her own flat.

She sits inside and promptly begins to panic.

Her neighbor of two years knows her name. He knows exactly who she is [anyone from Northumberland to Shetland knows the Starks as one of the most ancient clans present in Scotland]. What if he had seen her before? What if he had known she would live here? What if he followed her to work?

‘Oh my God, I was in his flat alone moments ago and I just told him my life story from birth to present and now he knows everything and _Christ_ —‘ Sansa’s hand flies to her mouth [scandalized] as her mind races, “ _What if he’s a stalker?_ What if, right in his bedroom, he has news clippings and unauthorized photographs and articles about me—’

She jumps when she hears 504 turn his shower on. Their walls are thinner than seems to be safe [she had found this out when he could hear her singing in the shower—she really hadn’t been that loud] and the sound of water rushing through the plumbing and into his bath jerks her from her hysterics. She looks to the wall and imagines she can see straight through and project her anxiety to him by simply glaring.

Honestly…how much had he already known? Sansa has fled her home [homes] before. She will do it again if necessary. Her unintended heart-to-heart has brought fresh unease to her as things she has not thought about for years bubble up to the surface. She puts her face in her hands and the dark corners of her mind [the more horrible things she had not mentioned] began to swallow her whole.

Getting fired from her first job fresh out of the university due to blackmail. Packing her things and bolting to Glasgow the second she had graduated. Standing in a dark room naked and shaking before vomiting at what she had just done but cannot remember doing. Visiting a comatose Jon [giving him an apology wet with tears for never treating him as her family and then crying harder knowing he would not hear her]. Realizing that the very man who had promised her safety and power and vengeance had just made it so no graduate school would ever take her [destroying her very last dream]. Getting the phone call that nearly destroyed her independent study [even now Bran and Rickon were still missing]. Enduring secret touches and kisses [cold hands beneath her skirt and in her blouse and mint breath panting into her neck]. Watching the house in London fade in the rearview mirror [still not knowing where Arya had disappeared to]. Watching Joffrey froth at the mouth and gouge his fingers into his neck in an effort to breathe again. Receiving news of her mother drowning and her brother’s demise at what was now known as the Red Wedding—as well as photographs in the post sent by an anonymous source that had made her faint [no one ever told her since then what exactly they had done with Robb’s head].

Joffrey holding her still with a steel grip on her jaw [forcing her to watch] as Mr. Payne _took care_ of her father.

The memories come and pass in moments or maybe an hour [she has been sitting there for what feels like an age staring at nothing at all]. Her face is blank but her eyes are dry. The rush of water between the thin walls trickles through her apartment. It suddenly cuts off [she can hear the very faint scrape of metal curtain hooks dragging aside].

She should not have spoken with 504 about her past. She should have drunk his tea in silence and left. He has ripped the bandages off and scrubbed the scabs open. She cannot deny she feels cleaner having told someone something [even if it was simply a fraction of the whole truth]. The longer she thinks about it the more grateful she becomes that he had been the one to hear it. It is unlikely he is a stalker. It is more likely he read the newspaper. Reason makes her want to believe he is simply a good man. Littlefinger makes her want to hire a private investigator to rifle through his home, track his com calls, and log his rLDB [she had employed someone to hack her residential Living Data Base to show only her Monday routine and nothing else]. She has been ousted from a hiding place before by trusting as a frightened girl would.

She reclines into her sofa [exhausted] and coolly regards the ceiling.

She also cannot deny her desire to suck whipped cream from his manhood [but that is a woman’s trick she is unwilling to put to practice to draw information out of him]. Her neighbor’s body is a fantasy made flesh. His face is a ruin. She wonders what horror he could have encountered for such a wound. She understands his lack of social graces, though. She becomes conscious that she is not so different from him. His face stigmatizes him and trumps any redeeming qualities he has [scant few as they are]. Her face is the only redeeming quality she possesses [and it is the only one anyone cares about]. But beneath a layer of clothing—

Sansa begins a breathing regimen she had learned from a yoga instructor that a psychologist had encouraged her to see. Her past has overwhelmed her before [leaving her a choking wreck on the floor struggling to learn how to breathe again] and she knows now when to stop it. Her heart rate lowers eventually. Her eyes flutter shut.

She will confront him. She will give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him.

And if it’s a good explanation she’ll ask him for drinks and maybe see that elusive tattoo without a shirt in the way before the night is out.

Sansa gets up from the couch and wanders into the kitchen to see if there’s any chicken left for pasta.

**Yesterday [Sunday, December 6, 2172]**

“I used to provide private security for Robert Baratheon and his family.” The admission makes the blood drain from her face. She has done her best to forget her time with the Baratheons [especially after there had been no Stark left alive to protect her] and has tried particularly hard to forget the thugs who had seemed to be hired for the mere sport of beating her for her fiancée’s pleasure. She wishes she had not blurred their faces from her mind now. He had not hurt her. She would have remembered.

“You—you saw me with them?” she asks [almost afraid to know].

“Aye. You and that Joffrey boy seemed quite attached.” The words are a minute blow to her [that anyone would call what had been between them _attachment_ ] but she suddenly knows where she has met him [sort of] before. The day Nymeria [Arya’s rabid pet monster] had attacked Joffrey had been the same day she had met Mr. Payne. He had come close to her [with that terrifying tortured expression he always seemed to retain] and then was shooed from her by—

“You were the one who came to my door the night after they had Lady euthanized,” she realizes. He frowns in confusion. “I heard you come up the stairs and I was afraid you were sent to bring me to that awful Lannister woman,” she carries on, “I looked outside when nothing happened. I saw the side of your face when you rounded the corner after you left.” She hesitates [wondering if it would be appropriate to continue]. “I didn’t see your scar,” she confesses.

 “Haven’t changed much since then, have you?” he says, “You still chirp pretty things. You still carry fear in you.”

“I don’t think you know me well enough to gauge whether I’ve changed or not.” She unexpectedly finds her loafers fascinating.

“If you’re quite finished—” he’s saying. Sansa looks up.

“I was wondering if you would be open to stepping out with me for dinner,” she says [her voice takes on the diplomatic lilt Littlefinger had taught her]. His eyebrows shoot up. He chuckles and shakes his head at her [probably with disbelief at her daring].

“You’re asking me to step out with you.” She pauses and wets her lower lip.

 “Did I stutter?” She doesn’t know where she found the pluck. He smirks.

“Have I ruffled the little bird’s feathers?” he teases. A flush appears on her skin [mostly her ears].

 “Why on earth do you think a man like me should be stepping out with a sweet young thing like you?”

Sansa’s eyes flick up to his face and then down at her feet [stopping at his distracting folded arms before dropping].

“I’m afraid I don’t understand…” she murmurs and shifts from one foot to the other.

‘I should go now. Feet, we should go now.’

He wraps a hand around her arm and pulls her toward him. He smells like shampoo and aftershave. She can practically feel her eyes dilating as his proximity ignites her.

“Look at me.” She stiffens and does as he commands. She peeks up at him from under her lashes [how this man makes her feel so small].

“I’m looking,” she says to him softly. He drops her arm like it burns him. She bites her lip and for a wild moment wonders whether to do the both of them a favor and skip the date altogether. He has barely got anything on and she highly doubts he will refuse her.

“Not tonight,” he tells her. _Blast._

 “I have a job to do.”

“But it’s Sunday…”

“Aye.” She nods and steps back. He rolls his eyes. “If it pleases you, I’ll be free tomorrow until eight.”

“In the evening?”

“Aye.” A smile spreads across her face. _That was less painful than planned._

“Perfect,” she says, “I’ll come around four, if that’s alright?” He nods.

“Until tomorrow then,” he says.

“Until tomorrow,” she replies softly.      

**Today [Monday, December 7, 2172]**

“I don’t follow,” she replies meekly. She sees his hand tighten on his glass briefly. She thinks she may have imagined it when he laughs [shaking his head] and changes the subject.

“Do you always eat like a mouse?” Sansa sputters indignantly at this as he steals another chip. “No wonder you look underfed.”

“I am not underfed!” she cries, “Just tall.”

“I’m taller than you; I reckon I’d be skinny as a bleeding rail if we went by that logic,” he counters.

“You consume much more food than I do.” His raised eyebrow makes her realize she has proved his point and she throws her hands up feebly. “I know what you’re doing! You won’t get me off topic. Tell me your name.” He rolls his eyes and tucks back into her chips again.

“We’ve managed so far without it, and the likelihood we’ll ever cross paths like this again is slim.” She is surprised and unsurprised to find a seed of disappointment take root in her chest.

“Says who?” she says quietly [mostly to herself] but he hears her. The amusement leaves his face. He seems to think about the words he is about to say before he says them.

“You own a mirror, little bird?”

“Yes, there’s one in the bath,” she says [a little confused].

“When you step out of the shower in the mornings, what do you see there?”

“Myself, of course—”

“And it’s probably the same face everyone sees, isn’t it?”

“What on Earth are you getting at?” He gulps down the whiskey and drops the tumbler to the table a little harder than needed.

“Why do you think I brought you here?” She looks at him [searching his face for some kind of clue as to where this is going] and fumbles for a coherent train of thought. He does not wait for her reply. “I brought you here specifically to make you uncomfortable.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I am humoring you.” For a moment Sansa is stunned into silence. She shakes her head and smiles nervously.

“Sorry?”

“I’ve got fifteen years on you, and I have better things to do in a day than to babysit a woman who’s barely out of girlhood. I’ve spared a chunk of my time listening to your oral autobiography. Painful as it was.” Her ears flame in humiliation but he continues. “And, for all you know, I may be the man who takes a straitlaced princess like Sansa Stark to a pub titled _NiceNSleazy_ and tries to loosen her up with a martini before moving onto harder stuff until she thinks it’s a good idea to let me into her clothes.” His words strike her [maybe he is precisely what she had at first made him out to be] and she abruptly wants to disprove them. The 504 from Friday is not this man.

‘He’s trying to scare me off.’

“I don’t believe you,” she says timidly [wishing to disappear into her seat].

“I wanted to make you as uncomfortable as possible so you’d wake up and decide that this in fact is a horrible idea.”

“You’re acting so strange, it doesn’t seem like you,” Sansa mumbles. He gives a harsh and mirthless bark.

“You don’t know the first thing about me.” He is right. He is absolutely right. She ducks her head [unable to look him in the face any longer].

“I’m sorry.” This appears to infuriate him even further. His jaw sets menacingly and his good eye narrows.

“You just love to play cute, don’t you?” he says heavily on an exhale, “Just the perfect little lady, singing her perfect little courtesies for anyone. You’re a fool if you think those sweet civilities will get you anywhere. All I hear is you cheeping at me like a fucking canary.”

Something inside Sansa breaks. She does not cry or apologize again. She raises her head and straightens her shoulders. She honestly has no idea what she expected from this but it is clearly one massive mortification. She has had enough.

Sansa Stark _is_ a lady and does not take kindly to being treated like anything less.

She leaves a note large enough to pay the bill and leave a tip and departs without another word. The front of the pub is flooded now with an impenetrable throng of young adults so Sansa heads for the back door. She exits the pub into the narrow alley off to the side and strides briskly through a small gathering of smokers that look like smaller wish-I-was versions of 504. One of them whistles at her [which she does not even care to acknowledge]. She digs through her purse for her com as she emerges from the alley and looks up and down the street to flag down a taxi. The sooner she can get home the better. Sansa frowns and stands under a street lamp while beginning a more thorough search for her com. The bothersome wafer of flexible touch-sensitive plexiglass lies at the very bottom of the bag [of course] and she is about to withdraw it when a hand closes hard around her arm and yanks her into the dark of the alley.

“And where on Earth do you think you’re going?” a livid 504 growls at her.

“Why on Earth do you care?” she shoots back. The nerve of this man is ridiculous. She tries to shake her arm from him and he pushes her into the wall. She refuses to shrink as he blocks her in with his sheer size.

“You bought my drink, the very least I can do is take you home.” The words of a polite offer come out of his mouth as a threat. Once upon a time [in her youth] Sansa had enjoyed a fiery temper inherited from her mother. It was not often now [almost never] that it surged up inside her but this man… _this man._ Sansa rips her arm from his clutch and savagely shoves him away from her. Her hands connect with a chest that feels more like warm steel than skin and bone.

“Please, don’t feel obliged. You’ve done quite enough as it is,” she hisses. The man who had whistled at her earlier begins to laugh.

“Bit o’ a lovers’ spat?” he calls. His companions howl and 504 turns to face them full on. They wilt at the sight of his face [and doubtlessly the expression on it].

“What you doin’ wi’him, darling?” another man slurs, “I’d treatcha better’an he ever will. Better in bed, too.” He grabs at his crotch as his friends find the courage to hoot in amusement. 504 takes a step towards them and the laughter instantly ceases at the realization that he is much bigger than any two of them.

“In the case any of you were looking for an opportune time to run back inside,” he says, “Now is it.”

Sansa is very glad she is sure her neighbor is not a rapist or else she would have been doomed by such spineless men [or boys rather] as they scurry back inside in a hurry. She presses herself against the wall again when he rounds on her.

“There. My point is proven. Happy?” he rumbles.

“You’re ashamed to be seen with me? Is that it?” The look on his face is priceless.

“No, _you_ should be ashamed to be seen with _me_.” She laughs outright.

“504—may I call you that? You refuse to tell me your name, so that’s what I call you in my head—you seem to have steeped yourself in self-loathing over your face. I can imagine why; I’m sure there are plenty of people who have pointed out the obvious to you…indelicately.” He sputters.

“ _Indelicately_ —”

“Not to mention I can’t begin to conceive what it’s like to have half of my head covered in unsightly burns.” Sansa knows she is being indelicate herself but he asked for it. “But allow me to point one thing out to you that it appears has never crossed your mind.”

“And what’s that?” he sneers.

“Out of anyone, you’re the most obsessed with your scars. There’s no one who thinks about them more than you do.” His face is blank but she doesn’t stop. “Why, this entire evening I’ve been looking you in the eye and not once said a word about it. Would you care to know why?” He opens his mouth but she does not allow him time to answer. “I honestly could care less.” It is his turn to be dumbfounded. He is staring at her like she has grown antlers from her head. She finds he is much more likeable when he is not talking. “I have beheld much more difficult things to look upon than your face.”

“Like what?” he challenges.

“I watched my seven year old brother learn how to use a wheel chair.” Sansa waits for him to comment. He does not say anything. After bitching about how he had listened to her _oral autobiography_ he had conveniently forgotten about that little bit. “You do not know how hard it is to see your little brother try and fail to push himself in a wheel chair because his arms are not strong enough.”

“I’m sorry.” It is barely [ _barely_ ] over a whisper but at least it is sincere. “I didn’t think—”

“No, you did not,” she retorts, “There are more tragic things in this world than your face, you know. There are more terrible things to live with for the rest of your life than your scars.”

They stand there quiet for a moment. He looks like he is searching for something to say but she does not want to hear it.

“Look,” she starts, “If you don’t want to be seen with me, fine. I’ll leave you alone and you’ll never hear of me again. Just…” She shoulders her bag and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Just because you can’t see past my face doesn’t mean I can’t see past yours.” She shrugs. “I guess that’s it.”

“Sansa? Sansa, is that you?” She jumps a little and stares down the alley. Silhouetted by the light of the street is the shape of a young man but she knows that voice. Harrold fucking Hardyng.

“Shit,” she swears.

“Doesn’t learn, does he?” 504 says simultaneously. Sansa eyes him confusedly. He grins at her and grabs her by the wrist. “Come on.” He sets off at a long stride heading deeper into the dark that leaves her jogging to keep up. He jerks her around a corner and down a little ways before moving her against the wall again. “Play along, would you?” he whispers conspiratorially.

“Depends on what you’re planning,” she manages to get out before he swoops down on her and she finds his tongue in her mouth right alongside her own. It is the opposite of what she had expected him to be planning.

His mouth is hot and aggressive [like she had thought] and he has her flat against him and the wall. Her hands are on his chest and his are on her waist and the small of her back. She is vaguely aware of Harry stopping short at the sight of them but then 504 pulls her hips into his via two large handfuls of her arse and the stupid boy is forgotten. Her fingers knot themselves into his black hair at the nape of his neck and she feels him shiver. One of his hands travels into her own long tresses and tugs to expose the pale column of her neck to his teeth. His leg nudges in between her thighs and it is all she can do to keep herself from grinding into it. She pushes at his open coat. He unzips her jacket. Her hands find their way under his shirt and feels the abdominal muscles there constrict deliciously at the cold her of fingertips. He rips at her blouse [she is exceedingly glad it is snap and not actually buttoned] and cups a breast. She arches into him. He bites hard on the juncture of her neck and shoulder as hand moves up her thigh [hiking up her skirt] and under her knickers to knead her rear.

“I’d insert your name somewhere around now but I still don’t know it,” Sansa says breathlessly.

“Don’t talk to me about inserting anything right now,” he groans in response. She captures his lips again while raking her nails down his front. He moans into her mouth and presses a very hard bulge in his jeans into her.

And then he releases her.

“He’s gone,” he mutters [averting his eyes]. She looks down and notices she is rather indecent and it is very cold. She does not bother with her shirt and zips her coat. 504 is eyeing her with lingering arousal and she is certain she is doing the same. She makes a quick decision and does not really care about the consequences.

“How far is the car park from here again?” she asks.

“A few blocks south, why?” She grabs his hand and starts out of the alley.

“We have unfinished business to attend to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering where all the "omfg he's so scary i can't look him in the face aaaahhhh" is going to show up, it won't. If they had properly met in Sansa's youth, why yes, she would have been terrified. She is a grown woman who is a tad more disillusioned so I figure she's over it fairly quickly. We all were. I wasn't like "Ew, his face is burned off". I was like "BAD ASS THIS MAN IS. LOOK AT THEM GUNS."
> 
> I won't kid myself and try to keep this kosher.


End file.
